It all comes down to the RELATIONSHIP you have with your dream.
You need to stay present in this relationship in order to have a fruitful successful relationship with your dream - to be in RIGHT relationship with your dream.
Right relationship is about listening and respect and trust and collaboration and love.
The world tells us that these are the kinds of relationships we can have with our dreams:
- Sacrifice EVERYTHING for your dream, and maybe your dream will come to you in the end. Self-sacrificing relationship where your personal needs don't matter.
- Wish and pray and treat the universe like your personal vending machine and your dream will come to you. Juvenile relationship where you expect everything to be handed to you.
- A dream is just a thing to dream about, just keep it on the shelf you have more important things to do. Weird secret relationship that never goes anywhere.
Those are all nonsense! When you come into RIGHT relationship with your dream you enter this powerful place of co-creation.
Your dream is powerful and wise. Partnering with it makes YOU more powerful and wise.
When I forget to partner with my dream I have to do everything myself. I get overwhelmed easily. My options shrink.
When I remember to partner with my dream there is a palpable sense of relief. My dream has an expanded perspective, so it can offer MUCH BETTER IDEAS.
Yes, you can learn to communicate with your dream in such a way that you can RECEIVE it's amazing ideas.
Of course getting there is a process.
But in my experience - anyone who shows up and practices can get there.
And when you get there - you become unstoppable. Your purpose and power become AMPLIFIED by the purpose and power of your dream.
I'm doing a live coaching call and alchemy class about this next week!
I do a live coaching call and alchemy class every month as a part of Dream Book. Each month we have a different theme on the calls and this month the theme is working on right-relationship with your dream.
Can't wait to explore this with you!
I was asked for my tips, tricks and advice for how to navigate that space when you're getting ready to quit your job and LEAP into your dream.
I was approached by someone who is getting ready to leave her job to do her dream full time. She's been building up her creative work for some time, now she's rented a studio and is gearing up to quit her job. But in the meantime - she has to keep working full time.
So she asked me for tips or suggestions for navigating this part of the path - where she's got to keep showing up to work full time WHILE ALSO pushing her business into full time.
This is a hard place to be and temporary sacrifices to have to be made. BUT there are also LOTS of things you can do to make the transition easier.
And that's what today's new video is all about!
As I said in the Video: I WOULD LOVE TO HELP YOU WITH THIS!!
For all of January I've been working on clearing some space so I could focus on some BIG GOALS I have for this year.
So here I am: with a week mostly clear to work on these big goals.
And what am I doing? Anything but focus on my big goals, of course.
In this moment, trying to bring myself to focus and get to work feels IMPOSSIBLE.
So, I am focusing on my resistance instead. Sitting with it, getting curious about it, exploring where I can bring some light and space and healing in.
My resistance is grey clouds. Not heavy clouds just... well they FEEL heavy. They make ME feel heavy.
The clouds think I should just watch Grace and Frankie and knit all day. I worked hard all month, don't I deserve that?
Yes of course I deserve that, and can even do that - AFTER my new lavender coloured linen/cotton blend gets here and AFTER I have this work that I really do want to do.
Now my resistance is saying: You know what? We should go on an AMAZING creative retreat to work on this stuff away from everything.
OK that's actually a really good idea, and since this is a goal I want to work on all year, we CAN make a plan to do that - but not right now.
Right now I need to focus on these next steps I want to take.
My resistance feels it would be so much more fun to just dream about creative retreats.
And I need to stop letting my resistance change the subject, and focus on the matter at hand.
I want to make progress on this scary project.
Wind blows and the grey clouds of resistance become a brick wall. I spread out a brightly coloured blanket in front of the wall and sit down on it. I pull out my Dream Book and paint pens.
Starting small, I make a list of things I WOULD LIKE to do this week. No pressure to follow through, I just want to see the list out of my head and on paper.
The wall leans forward, peeking over my shoulder to watch.
And it turns out there are only 3 things I would like to do this week, and putting them into the Dream Book changes them.
Now they feel do-able and FUN.
The brick wall has some graffiti on it now - super creative artwork. Some inspirational quotes and "follow your dreams" type stuff.
I put my Dream Book down and focus back on the wall of resistance.
So - it looks like you're kind of coming on board with this now?
The wall forgot how much FUN it is to pursue those BIG goals. How it lights me up to play with them.
I place my hand on the wall and a graffiti heart appears under it. I send love to the wall.
I do love the wall, I love all forms of my resistance because I know it's trying to protect me. I am so sensitive and easily overwhelmed and it has SO MUCH to try to protect me from.
But it doesn't need to protect me from this.
I am ready.
I hope you're going to join me for Dream Book!
Dream Book is a GENIUS journaling system to help you navigate all of the inner work and outer work and obstacles and healing and special challenges your dream has for you.
It's helping me go deeper and be braver.
It's already helping hundreds of people - every week someone writes to me in tears over how much things are changing for them because of this work.
Hearing the stories of people who are pursuing their dreams is one of the things I find most inspiring in the world. I'm lucky, I get to hear these stories every day in the Creative Dream Circle, my Online Incubator for Dreamers, Artists, Healers, Coaches and World-Changers.
So I'm sharing some of their stories out here!
Today I'm talking with Eefje Jansen. Eefje is working on accepting who she is and daring to share her light with the world. She is a sensitive, intuitive woman, mother and wife, reconnecting with Mother Earth and developing her skills as an organic artist.
Eefje had some REALLY inspiring things to share about facing fear as an artist.
Her fear, and a really strong inner critic, stopped her from doing her art for years, but her art kept calling her and now she's answering the call with her inspiring work.
website: www.eefje-jansen.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ateliereefjejansen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atelier_eefje_jansen/
Hello 2020!! Creative Journal Prompts for the New Year
First we reflect on the year that is ending.
It's actually REALLY HARD to keep making new goals for the New Year if you're not taking the time to reflect on and learn from what happened with your plans for the year that is ending.
By taking some time to reflect, you're gathering up the gifts and lessons of the year that is ending, so you can carry them with you into the new year.
You're also making some space for processing and healing the hard parts of the year that is ending, and getting some clarity on what you want to let go of, to make space for what you want to receive in the new year.
(If you're struggling with that part - I have a FREE 90 minute video class + healing circle where i lead you through this - get it here)
Looking back:
What did you try with your dreams in 2019? What worked? What didn’t work?
What was amazing in 2019?
What are you most grateful for about 2019?
What did you do in 2019 that you’re proud of?
What did you learn/discover that you want to bring into 2020?
What was hard in 2019?
What do you want to leave behind in 2019?
How did your dreams grow in 2029?
How did YOU grow in 2019? What gifts and strengths do you have now that you didn’t have in 2018?
Is there anything you need to do to complete your year? Any unfinished business that you’d like to finish, and leave behind as you move into 2019?
Looking forward:
Try to list 5-10 things (impossibly big or microscopically small or anything in between) you’d like to have happen in 2020, in each of these different parts of your life:
health * relationships * creativity * purpose/career * money * self-love/self-care * spirituality * happiness * adventure/play
I know that seems like a lot, but the act of listing TONS of things can really open up your sense of possibility. So spend some time with this - I find it's best to leave this list out somewhere for a week or so, so I keep adding new things as I think of them.
When you're done go back through your list and imagine how each of these things will make you happier in 2020. If there is anything on your list that won’t truly make you feel happier – cross it out.
What is your Big Dream for 2020?
Why do you want this?
How will you feel when you have it?
Do you already know how to make this dream real, or is this something you need to learn more about first?
What’s your plan for giving this dream what it needs to thrive in 2020? Brainstorm 10 things you can try.
What do you want to STOP doing in 2020? And what are some things you can you do to make that as easy as possible? How will not having these things in your life make you happier?
Then imagine yourself at the end of 2020
(You might want to draw/collage/doodle an image of you from one year from now).
How are you different? How did you grow? What new strengths and skills do you have? Does you-from-one-year-from-today have any messages or advice for you?
Here’s to a sparkletastic New Year, for all of us.
I did literally fail at ALL of my goals for 2019 and, upon reflection, this is a VERY GOOD THING.
I have a lot to say about how wholeheartedly and enthusiastically pursuing our goals can move us towards our dreams - regardless of it we reach the goals or not.
So.... as I shared yesterday, I failed at ALL my goals for 2019.
Last week I did a Circle of Reflection + Release in the Creative Dream Circle - we got together on Zoom to reflect on 2019, to explore and honour all the things we learned, all the ways we grew, and to release the things that we don't want to carry with us into 2020.
This call was difficult for me to do.
As a space-holder for this kind of work, my own practice becomes a part of the container... the call can't be a container for exploring things that I can't face myself. So i had to face some hard stuff...
All of my goals for this year crashed and burned by spring.
And as they crashed and burned they took some other things with them. My website was hacked multiple times and though I could recover the content from backups, by the end I couldn't re-build where I was, so I had to move everything AND my SEO was lost.
(SEO = Search Engine Optimization. 10 years of blogging and building my SEO meant that Google used to send me thousands of new people every month so I had new customers coming to me all the time without me working at finding them which is a total dream-come-true way to run a business. That's gone now.)
The company that I moved my website TO (Simplero) promised me that my SEO would improve in the move and instead it was completely trashed. For months I expected them to do the right thing and fix it while they just ignored it.
And then some other tech stuff went wrong and I was so focused on re-building while also continuing to do my work in the Creative Dream Circle - that I forgot all about my goals for 2019.
I had to sit with how painful and scary and embarrassing it was, to have ALL of my goals fail like this. But once I'd done that, and spent time grieving and offering love to the parts of me who felt wounded by this experience, I saw everything more clearly.
The crash, burn and destruction of so much of my work that happened this year was an opportunity to do things differently.
There are times when what you have needs to fall apart to make space for what you want.
Sometimes this is obvious. You've got to dump the crappy partner if you want to be able to find a good one.
Sometimes, like in this case, it's more subtle.
The day, last spring, when I saw that all this stuff I had spent so long building had all fallen apart, I was devastated. I still remember how that felt, feeling like it was all gone, and there was no more hope.
I felt like not only had I failed at my dreams but I'd failed every person I'd taught over the years
Because if I can't keep my dreams going then how is there any value in what I am teaching? Am I just leading people astray? It was very hard.
But I only stayed in that place for 1 day, because as I sat with those feelings and tried to bring light, comfort, love and safety to those parts of me who needed healing so badly - I saw that none of it was true.
It wasn't gone. I hadn't failed. There was still oodles of hope.
And then I found the biggest truth: I built all of this. I can re-build it all better now.
When that idea came to me, it felt different. It felt true. It felt like a doorway and as I went through the doorway I saw that I had built everything in my business without knowing what I was doing!
I was trial-and-erroring my way long. I was following inspiration and doing creative experiments. And the results of all of that turned into the business I built.
Ten years of trial and error and inspiration and experiments have actually taught me a lot.
I DO know what I'm doing now, in some ways anyway. I certainly know TONS more than I knew 10 years ago.
And then I knew that I could re-build SO MUCH BETTER.
Then I knew that the falling apart was a gift because it created space for me to re-build.
None of this was easy. Dreams aren't easy.
Oh course, I was in a good position to have some parts of my business fall apart because other parts did not fall apart. I still have long-term Creative Dream Circle members and I even had wonderful new people finding us and joining - just not as many new people as I usually get.
So yes I made less money this year.
But I'm a saver, and I am in this for the long term, so I have savings put aside especially for helping me through any lean times that may come up. I know that of course there will be ups and downs in business so it just makes sense to save for the down times... though it was hard to actually USE some of this savings because that made me feel like I was failing again.
But now that I am through that part, I feel so grateful to have had that space to focus on re-building. To really explore how to make all better.
I mean - my own experience in my business: my schedule and routines and how I show up for the work and how I am supported in that. And also my customer's experience with my business. We do DEEP transformational work so it is SO easy to get caught up in resistance or tangled up in fears and doubts and just give up. How do I build an even sturdier container for their process of growth and healing?
These explorations gave me a whole new way of relating to my work and I am SO EXCITED about the changes I have made as a result.
Where I am now feels LIGHT YEARS away from the goals I had set for myself at the end of 2018.
Had I accomplished my original goals for 2019, I don't think I'd be in such a rich place with my dreams right now. Working with your dreams means tapping into something bigger than yourself.
That part of me who set goals for 2019 was ready to GROW! I am so grateful for everything she did because it did lead me to here.
Are you ready for some year-end reflecting?
My Creative Journal Prompts for the New Year are on my blog right here.
It's a LONG series of prompts for reflection back on 2019 and looking ahead to what you want to create in 2020.
This is one of those classic new age affirmations:
It's easy for me to ___ (fill in the blank with something specific) ___
And the idea is that you're supposed to repeat it to yourself until you believe it. You're supposed to CHANGE your belief that it's hard to have your dream.
It's NOT that hard to change a belief. Beliefs are just thoughts we think so often they become weightier in your unconscious. There are lots of tools for changing beliefs, for creating a belief system that makes it easier for you to achieve what you want in life.
But this work can be downright violent.
If the shallowest part of you, your logical mind, decides that you want easy money and a big house and sets out to change your beliefs to make this possible for you to achieve... what are you doing, really?
First of all you're allowing your shallowest self to be in the driver's seat in your life. Not usually a great idea.
But more importantly, you're allowing your shallowest part of yourself to bully other parts of you into thinking the way it wants you to think.
And in the process you're totally erasing the reasons why you have the beliefs you have.
You have the belief system you have for a reason.
Some of those reasons are pretty benign.
And some of them are protective trauma responses.
Some of them are tied to other core beliefs, which are there for really good reasons...
I mean you just don't know.
To say: Everything would be better if I had a belief that money comes to me super easy all the time is dangerously short-sighted.
Last weekend we took the kids to my friends' farm. On the drive home we were talking about Henry Ford and the regret he felt at the end of his life over how his mission to make cars accessible to everyone had changed the world in really negative ways.
Since then I've been thinking about how short-sighted we are can be, when we're in the thrall of inspiration with our creative dreams.
And how this short-sightedness can lead us to take a different path than the one our wisest self would choose.
Which is not to say you should give up on all of this change your life stuff.
The problem is when you put your logical mind, your shallowest self, in the driver's seat.
So - put your deepest wisest genius self in the driver's seat.
Which means instead of DECIDING what to chase after - make space for LISTENING for what is most true for you.
The bonus is that this deeper wiser genius part of you is also the most POWERFUL part of you, so once you get aligned with what this part fo you wants - it's much easier to do the outer work of making it happen.
It's easy for me to ___ (fill in the blank with something specific) ___
I've been using this mantra and am encouraging my Creative Dream Circle members to use it with me for the next month.
Not because my logical mind decided this certain thing should be easy.
But because after months of listening and following direction from my inner wisdom, I am doing a thing that is really HARD for me.
And because my inner wisdom is clear that this is the thing for me to do now, I started using this mantra to help make it more doable for me to do the thing.
See the difference? It's all about which part of you is in the driver's seat.
Hearing the stories of people who are pursuing their dreams is one of the things I find most inspiring in the world. I'm lucky, I get to hear these stories every day in the Creative Dream Circle, my Online Incubator for Dreamers, Artists, Healers, Coaches and World-Changers.
So I'm sharing some of their stories out here!
Today's spotlight is: Briana Goetzen, MA, founder of Orange Spiral Arts.
Briana is an expressive arts facilitator living in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) area of Minnesota, in the USA.
As an artist, avid photographer, visual journal keeper, and deep conversation enthusiast, Briana supports people who desire to fully express themselves in mind, body, and spirit.
She helps people re-connect to the inner artist and divine inner wisdom that is inherently theirs.
Check out Briana's work here.
I asked Briana to tell me about her project and this is what she said:
My dream for a long, long time has been to teach/facilitate mixed media art workshops for adults. My personal mission is to inspire the inner creativity in others. I believe we are all born creative, and somehow along the way, many adults have lost touch with this part of themselves.
Some adults simply have not had the opportunity to explore their own creativity.
I also believe that being in touch with our inner creativity allows us to access our innate inner wisdom. Often this wisdom helps us grow, change, and transform our lives for the better.
I have been developing in person workshops and online classes off and on for the past fifteen years. Now that my son is "school age," I have been focusing full time on developing more online classes that are intended to inspire and spark your expressive, intuitive self.
In September 2019, I have released two online classes. The first is called Introduction to Abstract Alcohol Ink Art.
The second is what I call my "signature course", which is Liquid Watercolor Mandalas.
Then I asked: What were the biggest obstacles you faced with this?
And I asked: How did you work through the obstacles?
Check out Briana's work here:
Blog: orangespiralarts.com
Email: orangespiralarts@gmail.com
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/OrangeSpiralArts
Facebook: facebook.com/OrangeSpiralArts
Flickr: flickr.com/photos/brianacreates/
Instagram: @orangespiralarts
Pinterest: pinterest.com/brianacreates/
Twitter: twitter.com/BrianaCreates/
Hearing the stories of people who are pursuing their dreams is one of the things I find most inspiring in the world. I'm lucky, I get to hear these stories every day in the Creative Dream Circle, my Online Incubator for Dreamers, Artists, Healers, Coaches and World-Changers.
So I'm sharing some of their stories out here!
Today's spotlight is: Ricia Fleming, who has been working since forever to understand and heal those intangible interpersonal traumas from childhood – traumas like emotional neglect, unattunment, unempathic overinvolvement, or being used as a trophy to build up a parent’s status -- subtle traumas that fool us into thinking we have nothing to be upset about.
She’s writing a book to share with us what she’s discovered about validating and healing these subtle traumas.
Check out Ricia's work here:
Check out Ricia's work here:
If you want to get in touch with Ricia you can email her at Ricia [@] RiciaFleming.com
Hearing the stories of people who are pursuing their dreams is one of the things I find most inspiring in the world. I'm lucky, I get to hear these stories every day in the Creative Dream Circle, my Online Incubator for Artists, Healers, Coaches and World-Changers.
So I'm sharing some of their stories out here! (Circle members: if you missed my invitation to participate in this just send me an email I would love to spotlight ALL of you!)
Our first spotlight is: Angel Sullivan and the amazing business she's created: Small Biz Organization
Check Angel out here:
SmallBizOrganization.com * Facebook * Pinterest
Check Angel out here: